Paint Gold and Blood

by Michael Gilbert

  Goraji said, “Get in.” Peter started to protest, but there was no arguing with the guns.

  As they drove north along the road he thought perhaps they only wanted to keep an eye on him until the letter was posted. On the other hand, were they now so suspicious that they would reopen the letter to check its contents before dispatching it? When they reached the box – the same one in which Peter had posted his own letter some hours before – this fear, at least, was dispelled. Rasim jumped out with the letter, paused only to examine the legend in front of the box to make sure that the 10.30 collection had not yet taken place and pushed the letter through the slot.

  “Can I go home now?” said Peter meekly.

  Goraji said, “No.” Rasim jumped in beside Peter and the van bumped off down the road.

  Goraji, who seemed to be in a slightly better humour now that the business of the evening had been concluded, said, “You feel that an explanation is due for our detaining you. Yes?”

  “I didn’t see that I could be much more use to you.”

  “On the contrary. You may still have an important part to play.” He glanced at Rasim who was smiling. They both seemed relaxed and happy. Much too happy for Peter’s peace of mind.

  “We observed,” said Goraji, “the care with which you examined the painting.”

  “Care and skill,” said Rasim.

  “Clearly you had been instructed what to look for. Yes? We, on the other hand, do not possess the necessary knowledge to examine the bank draft with equal care and pronounce on its authenticity. We observed that the name of Crédit Agricole was at the head of it and that the sum mentioned appeared to be five million francs. But the signatures at the foot and the names and descriptions of the signers – what did we know about them? Nothing. The whole document could have been fictitious. A scrap of paper. Worthless. You appreciate now why we have to keep our hands on you. When this draft arrives in Paris tomorrow morning it will be examined by people who understand these things. As soon as they can communicate, they will be able to assure us that the draft is in order.

  “After which,” he added, “you will be of no further use to us.”

  Rasim said, “I also remembered something when I saw you earlier this evening. Yours is a face one does not easily forget. Outside that church in Normandy – you recall the occasion—?”

  “Yes,” said Peter. He said it reluctantly. He was hoping that Rasim would not have remembered him.

  “It makes you very precious to us,” said Rasim, sliding an arm round his shoulder. “Doubly precious.”

  10

  It was ten past ten when Stewart stepped from the plane at de Gaulle airport.

  The storm which had ravaged central Europe had passed too far to the east to affect Paris. It was a fine autumn evening. The moon, nearly full, was dimming the streetlights and the black sky overhead was full of stars.

  Stewart, who knew and loved Paris, took a taxi from the airport to the east end of the Boulevard Haussmann, then transferred to the Métro for a short trip to the Gare Guy Moquet. From here to reach the end of the Rue Lamarck involved a short walk back, down the Avenue de St. Ouen. A number of the shops were still open and he found himself stopping to examine the displays in the windows. After he had pulled up two or three times it occurred to him that his slow progress was the result of apprehension about what was to come. This was an uncomfortable thought and he swung round resolutely to continue his advance. As he did so he nearly collided with a man who was coming in the opposite direction.

  He said, “Mille pardons,” and then, “My God, fancy bumping into you.”

  It was Henry Bear, but the difference that four years had made was startling. The lumpy adolescent had become a man of the world. In his expensive herring-bone tweed suit, cream shirt and suede shoes he was the epitome of the successful businessman on holiday. The only suggestion of the schoolboy that had once existed was the Old Chelburian tie.

  “Stewart! Well met. Come and have a drink.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got a job on.”

  “Then after the job is over. It can’t take all night. Where are you staying?”

  For the first time it occurred to Stewart that in the hurry of his departure he had forgotten to make any arrangements for sleeping. He said, “As a matter of fact I hadn’t fixed anything. What about you?”

  “When I’m on business I stay at the Meurice. Being on holiday I’m more modest. A bed and breakfast place called the Deux Continents. It isn’t full. I could fix a room for you.”

  “That’s very good of you.”

  “Not a bit of it. Did you realise that you were the founder of my fortunes? That fifty pounds you wangled for me in my last term.”

  “It wasn’t a wangle.”

  “Anyway, as soon as I got home I put it on a horse.”

  “Silly ass.”

  “Hold on. It was an excellent animal. It cantered home at twenties. And that thousand smackers was the basis of my modest stake in the marketing outfit I’m with. I’ll tell you all about it at breakfast tomorrow.”

  When Bear had left him, heading for the pleasures of Montmartre, Stewart felt surprisingly cheered. He had at least one ally at hand. And wasn’t marketing something Ron had talked about? Marketing. It had a solid ring about it. And if a hearty lump like Henry could make a go of it with a mere thousand pounds as entry money, why shouldn’t he, with twenty times that sum and – no point in being modest about it – with twice his brain power, soon be swimming on that warm and profitable tide?

  These thoughts were in his head when he went through the door of No. 34 Rue Lamarck.

  The porter was sitting on a chair beside the lift, studying the racing pages of an evening paper. He did not seem happy. Perhaps his selections had not been as successful as Henry Bear’s. When Stewart asked for Monsieur Zaman he looked at him blankly.

  “Cinquième étage,” said Stewart. “Monsieur Agazadeh Zaman.”

  This time the porter seemed to understand him. He said, “Attendez un instant s’il vous plaît,” and disappeared into his hutch, shutting the door behind him. Stewart could hear him talking on the telephone. Then he reappeared, gestured towards the lift, sat down and resumed his reading.

  When Stewart got out of the lift at the fourth floor two young men were waiting for him. The taller of them said, in passable English, “You desire to speak to Monsieur Zaman. Yes?”

  “As the porter has by now no doubt informed you, that is precisely what I desire to do.”

  “There is a small formality first. Your hands on the wall, please. And lean forward.”

  Hands ran over Stewart’s body. It was an expert frisking which left nothing to chance. The hands paused for a moment and pulled out the cigarette case they had detected. It was handed to the second young man who opened it, looked inside and passed it back again. The lighter in his jacket pocket was examined in the same way.

  “I hope you are now convinced that I am not carrying any lethal weapons,” said Stewart pleasantly.

  “Only the cigarettes,” said the first man. “They will kill you in due course. You may go in. The room at the end.”

  One of them held the door open and both of them followed him in. Zaman was sitting on the couch in front of the window reading a book. He did not get up. The two young men retired to the far corner of the room and sat down. When Stewart looked round for a chair for himself Zaman said, “I did not invite you to be seated. I did not invite you to come here. First you will explain one thing, please. How did you know where I lived?”

  Stewart, who had anticipated this question and had decided that frankness would serve him best, said, “I am a friend of Mrs. Chaytor. She visited you here recently. She gave me the address.”

  “I see. And being in Paris you decided to pay me a friendly visit.”

  “That’s not quite true. It was something I learned yesterday afternoon, from Mr. and Mrs. Chaytor, that convinced me that I ought to come here.”

  “So – an impromptu vi
sit, then. Did you tell the Chaytors you were coming?”

  The question slid out so smoothly that Stewart had said ‘no’ to it before it occurred to him that it might have been wiser to say ‘yes’.

  “Then no one knows that you are here?”

  “That could have been the case, but in fact, quite by chance, I ran into an old school friend on the way here.”

  “And you told him where you were going, perhaps.”

  Stewart would have liked to have said ‘yes’, but could think of no plausible reason for having confided in Henry Bear. He decided to stick to the truth. He said, “No. I hardly imagined he would be interested.”

  “So if you disappeared, all that anyone would know was that you had been in Paris.”

  “True,” said Stewart. He added, as lightly as he could manage for a certain dryness of his mouth, “as a matter of fact I hadn’t contemplated disappearing. What can have put that idea into your head?”

  “Oh, people do disappear in Paris. Not as often as in Teheran or Beirut, but with some regularity. Their bodies are placed, so I am told, in the sewers. This prevents awkward questions from arising, since the rats who swarm there in millions can consume the soft parts of a body in three days.”

  “In two days,” said the taller of the young men in the respectful voice of a student correcting a professor. “That is, if the body, when placed in the sewer, is unclothed.”

  “Thank you, Yussuf. You are correct. Clothes always make a difference, in life as in death. But we are straying from the point, Mr.—?”

  “Ives.”

  “Mr. Ives. You came here on business. Then state it.”

  Back in England it had seemed easy. He had repeated so often to himself the proposition that he intended to put that the words had come pat. Now it was different. It was not only that he was frightened. It was the realisation that he was dealing with a formidable man; a man, moreover, who had all the cards in his hand.

  He said, coming to the point more hastily than he had planned, “I happen to have stumbled on a piece of information which I think might be of vital importance to you. A friend of mine—”

  “Yes, yes. Mr. Meyer has told us about Peter Dolamore.”

  “Then you know that he has gone down to Lambrécie to transact a certain matter for you. What you do not know – and what I have just learned – is that the affair may not now come out in the way you had anticipated.”

  “And this is the information you will now give us?”

  “I will sell it to you.”

  “Oh. In return for what?”

  “In return for your ensuring that no harm comes to Peter.”

  Of all the reactions that Stewart had expected, the last one was laughter. Zaman leaned back on the couch and shook with a spasm of apparently genuine amusement.

  When he could speak he said, “Delicious. Let me be quite clear about this. You and your friend have, with unimaginable stupidity, got yourselves into positions of danger. Real danger, Mr. Ives, I can assure you of that. Now you want me to get you out of it by selling me some valuable information. Yes?”

  Stewart managed to say ‘yes’. He experienced some difficulty in speaking. The atmosphere in the room seemed to have become both closer and colder.

  Zaman sat forward and said, with great deliberation, “You – are – a – baby. No. I am wrong. A little older than that, perhaps, but not much. Shall we say, a schoolboy. A schoolboy who tells himself stories. Stories of which he is inevitably the hero.”

  In a last effort to assert himself Stewart said, “If you are going to lecture me, you might at least invite me to sit down.”

  “You will not sit down. You will stand up straight. You will listen and you will guard your tongue. If we have any more impertinence I shall be tempted to give you a lesson which you will not easily forget.”

  Whilst he was speaking the two young men had got up and were now standing so close behind him that he could feel their breath, on the back of his neck.

  “So. Attend to me closely. I shall not repeat myself. There are two reasons why the proposal you have made is nonsense. The first is that even if I wished to communicate with Goraji and Rasim I could not do so. When they are engaged in matters of this sort they do not live in luxury hotels with telephone numbers and receptionists to take messages.”

  “In any event,” said Yussuf, “all communications with the South of France have been temporarily interrupted.”

  “Is that so? I had not heard. But my second reason is even more cogent. You propose to sell me some information. But why should I buy it? I have at my disposal cheaper and quicker ways of obtaining it. Not many weeks ago an Iranian came here. He, also, was proposing to sell me information. I entrusted him to Yussuf here and his brother Ali. How long did it take to open his mouth?”

  “He was not very brave. In five minutes he was screaming and we were forced to gag him. Three minutes later, when the gag was removed he was most anxious to speak.”

  “But,” said Ali, “he was sobbing so bitterly that we had some difficulty, at first, in making out what he was saying.”

  “I am sure, now that you understand the position Mr. Ives, that you will not provoke us to such extremes. Quickly, if you please. We should all like to get some sleep tonight.”

  Stewart had no thought of refusing. He put a hand into his breast pocket – conscious that Yussuf’s hand was within inches of his as he did so – and drew out the flimsy from Mauger & Finch. Yussuf took it from him and passed it to Zaman, who read it carefully. He said, “Then it is tomorrow morning – or rather, since it is past midnight, I should say, this Friday morning – that Mr. Meyer leaves at noon for Buenos Aires. A single ticket. Are you suggesting that he means to stay there? This is not evidence of such intention. He has business contacts in South America. He may be coming back by some other route.”

  “Then why has he sold his house in London, with all its furniture, and lodged the money in the Banque de La Guyane here in Paris?”

  “You are certain? The Banque de La Guyane. That does suggest a number of interesting possibilities.”

  “And it was into that bank that Mr. Wellborn’s money was, in the first instance, to be paid.”

  “As I said, it is interesting. Fortunately — it was at my insistence - certain rigid time limits were incorporated into our arrangements. So if Mr. Wellborn’s draft, changed to a draft on the Banque de La Guyane, is not in my possession by eleven o’clock at the very latest, I shall have cause to believe that your suspicions of Mr. Meyer are well founded. In which case, I shall feel sufficiently grateful to allow you to depart. If not, I shall be forced to assume that you have intervened in my affairs for some ulterior motive. Or that you have been mischievously wasting my time. In which case you will, I assure you, regret your stupidity. But why should we anticipate unpleasant consequences which may not arise? Yussuf and Ali will show you your quarters. I cannot promise that they are comfortably furnished, but fortunately there is not much of the night left.” He gestured to the two young men and returned to the book he had been reading.

  The small room at the end of the hallway into which Stewart was led was neither comfortably nor uncomfortably furnished. There was nothing in it at all. The single window was shuttered and the shutters had been bolted into place.

  Yussuf said, “If you make any attempt to call attention to yourself, or to escape, you will be badly hurt, possibly crippled.”

  Both then left and Stewart heard two bolts on the outside of the door being shot home.

  Since there was nothing else to do he sat down, with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him. He hoped that he would be able to get some sleep because only if he slept would he be able to stop thinking.

  His thoughts were bitter. He had ridden out like a knight errant to rescue Peter and he was crawling home on his hands and knees. He had done nothing to improve Peter’s position and had rendered his own infinitely worse. He was a failure. He was a poseur. What
was it Zaman had said? A schoolboy who told himself stories.

  In the depths of his self-abasement he was overdramatising the position. Nevertheless it is arguable that it was then and there, with his legs stretched out on the boards and his back against the wall, that Stewart finally came of age.

  11

  As the van sped along the road and bumped down the track to the camp, Peter was examining, with no pleasure at all, the ruin of their careful planning.

  It had never crossed his mind that the men would keep him with them. What was going to happen to him when the envelope was opened at the bank and was found to contain nothing but a blank sheet of paper? How long would it take the news to reach his captors? Even if telephone communications had not been reopened a fast car, using the autoroute, could reach Bordeaux in three hours. A succession of possibilities occurred to him, all of them unpleasant.

  “Here we are, then,” said Rasim cheerfully. “Safely back in our little nest.” He led the way in and lit the pressure lamp. “I think we all deserve a drink, yes?”

  Goraji grunted agreement. He was less relaxed than Rasim. Somewhere a seed of suspicion had been planted in his mind and was germinating. As Peter had realised, at their first encounter in the church, he was the leader. He made the hard decisions.

  From a battered suitcase on the floor Rasim extracted a bottle of calvados and poured out three generous tumblers. Rasim smacked his lips as he swallowed the raw apple brandy. Goraji drank more sedately. Peter took one sip and felt the bile rising in his throat. He said, “I am going to be sick.”

  “Outside,” said Goraji.

  The two men went with him and watched as he deposited his supper on the path, after which, sweating and shivering, he crawled back into the hut and sat down on one of the beds.

  “It is a grave crime to waste honest drink,” observed Rasim sententiously. He divided the contents of Peter’s glass between himself and Goraji.

  When they had finished drinking Goraji looked at his watch. “Past eleven already,” he said. “But I think I will make one more attempt to telephone.”